


long summer nights turn into mornings

by greekdemigod



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:32:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6104995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greekdemigod/pseuds/greekdemigod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(friends turn into family.)</p><p>Love is taking turns doing what the other likes.<br/>In which Reyna and Nico share with each other a particular passion of theirs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	long summer nights turn into mornings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sturmundfrei (madeoutoflight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeoutoflight/gifts).



It started on a quest. A tiny one, compared to the ones they had been part of before—the ones they were known for. The Titans. Gaea. Not so much quests as they had been missions to save the world from annihilation. Life or death. Do or die. All that fun stuff.

Well… the one they went on after wasn’t really a quest, actually, more an assignment issued by the Senate. Not even Apollo would have wasted his time prophesying all of ten minutes of ass-kicking. (But we will get to that part later.)

Nico had been present at the Senate meeting, just like he had been for every other meeting, whenever he happened to be at Camp Jupiter. So he had been there to hear the assignment. It did not need _a Praetor of the goddamn Roman legion_ to take it up. Retired campers, newbies, even a couple of nymphs would, probably, have been able to get the job done.

But Reyna hadn’t been outside of camp for more than a single day since the battle against Gaea, a year ago. She needed this.

Not that she gave _that_ reason, of course—she said she had some other business in Arizona to attend to, anyway, so it would be _convenient_ and _practical_.

After getting the green light, she made her single demand: “I’m bringing Nico.”

Everyone knew which Nico she meant, because although there were several at camp, there was only one Reyna would ever call without surname. _Her_ Nico.

“Do you accept?”

Someone from the Senate asked him this, a bearded son of Mercury who, he would learn at a later time, went by the name of Marcus. But it wasn’t to him he smiled. Rather up to his friend, up on the stage, as Nico replied: “It would be my honor.”

That’s how they ended up road tripping to Phoenix. They could have shadow traveled, but Reyna had had five and a half reasons why they shouldn’t, as if she had thought about it already (she probably had), so they didn’t.

One of those reasons was the car Hylla had given her, a sleek silver Jaguar—one she was dying to take for a drive further than San Francisco proper. Nico didn’t mind saving his energy (reason two on her list) and claimed shotgun (not that he had anyone to contest with).

“What’s the other business in Arizona?” he asked as soon as they peeled out of the parking lot.

Reyna grinned, much more mischievously than she ever did at camp. “There is none.”

It would have been a twelve-hour drive if Reyna had kept to the speed limits. But “those are for mortals, or people that don’t need to go save a city”. They got to Phoenix in ten.

Had it been an actual threat, them being car-sore, hungry and lazy would have been a problem. But dealing with the cyclops turned out to be about as difficult as sinking an arrow into a stationary object or pelting a Roman satyr with a paper wad.

They had driven ten hours for a glorified practice exercise. Nothing to write home about—or make a poetic, cryptic prophecy for.

“Dinner?” Reyna proposed as she wiped monster dust off her arms.

“Dinner.”

Phoenix wasn’t a very impressive city. It was a tangle of tasteless architecture, all in a drab beige splattered across the near-identical buildings. Which is why the restaurant sprung out to them.

The front was a sunset orange, with lemon-yellow and azure-blue lights blinking out through the open windows. Beyond that, the promise of air conditioning and live music would have convinced them if there had been any doubts.

And that’s where it started.

Nico was picking at the last bits of his taco, Reyna washed her meal down with a swig of ice cold lemonade, when the band began a song that was dear to her. He saw it instantly—that jolt of recognition sparking in her eyes, the way she suddenly sat bolt-upright. A slow smile spread on her face.

“I used to dance to this,” she supplied and although they had been friends since lugging a statue across half the world, he hadn’t known she used to dance at all.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

It was a salsa song, that much he knew. And it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. They had trained together plenty of times—he had noticed that she moved with a dancer’s grace, one he had attributed to years and years of battle training.

“So you know how to dance the salsa, huh?” He could tell she was revisiting old memories. More than anything, he was glad she had happy memories at all, that Puerto Rica wasn’t one shit show to think back to. “That’s cool.”

Around them, from other tables, couples rose and took to the open space. They floundered across the floor, dancing around one another in flurries of cloth and limbs. All of them looked so happy to twirl or be twirled, to spin apart and come back together.

When his gaze finally slid back to Reyna, he saw the older girl smile as well.

“I can teach you.”

The thing was, Nico didn’t doubt she would be a good teacher or that he would take to it quickly. He had always been a rather fast learner. That wasn’t it at all. There were just so many people around them.

But, when Reyna took his hand and tugged, enough to get his attention but not enough to make the decision for him, he was reminded of another thing: he trusted her. More than anyone, anything, in the whole world.

She was his best friend.

So he nodded, slightly, and got up with her.

At first, he was marching in place, trying to shake the rigidity of his own body in order to sway it along to the music. But it wasn’t difficult to get there. After the initial nervousness, feeling gazes burn in his back, he finally let go. The music got to him, coaxed out of him a tentative sway and then a surer one, until he was moving fluidly, and laughing, and nudging Reyna as they moved together.

They weren’t dressed for the occasion at all, in their shorts and purple camp shirts. There was nothing between but the most platonic affection. But it was perfect regardless—or maybe _because_ of it.

They fit well together. She moved around him, he spun her into his arms. Her hair slipped from her braid and his from his ponytail, flying about as wildly as they were. Their shoes scuffed across the tiles for hours, until the evening had given way to night and a second wave of customers arrived, to filter into the dance space in the back. The band packed up to make place for a DJ and they surfaced from the spell the music, heat and dancing had put on them.

“Oh gods,” Reyna breathed now they finally separated long enough to see how much time had passed. “I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”

“Yeah, me too.” Nico was out of breath, sweaty and burning from exertion, but he had been smiling for hours, effortlessly.

* * *

They started sharing passions on the barely-a-quest in boring Phoenix, Arizona. Nico would remember it forever as one of the best weekends of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Idk tbh.


End file.
